GLAAD is right – Faggot is wrong

If I, a white chick, said ‘Nigger’ about someone at work, I’d be fired. Period.

Isiah Washington (Grey’s Anatomy‘s Preston Burke) called T.R. Knight (same show, George) a faggot. Then he apologized. Then he denied he said it.

And he still has a job.

Okay. What the hell is going on?

Shonda Rhimes (the show’s runner) and Isiah are both black, and one of my friends and I speculated that it’s the ‘club’ mentality, to protect your own kind. But there was a point to be made. T.R. went to Ellen, the famous gay talk-show host, to talk about this. Why? Well, Oprah probably would have been the best thing for it, but she’s in Africa. Still, there are no black late night hosts, Leno’s a fucker, and there are no openly gay late night hosts. So that means you’re going daytime, and if you’re going to talk about being called a faggot, you go to someone who’s going to sympathize with you. Fair enough.

You go to the lesbian.

But is Shonda covering for Isiah because they’re black? I’m a little sick at thinking it, but the bigotry double-standard is even more grotesque. If someone called me a kike, I’d be justified in getting their ass fired. If I called my friend, Qool Hand Luke, a nigger, he’d probably stop being my friend. I don’t even call my gay friends fag.

Moment – I have been known to tease people, calling them fairies, but I’m careful to use it in a very obvious ‘This is Ipstenu, teasing you.’ Much like I call my friend Dave an asshole all the time. It’s a long standing joke. I have been known to call my dad a fag, but that stems from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and it’s a long story.

There’s another double-standard to look at now. Is it okay for a Jewish lesbian to call people kikes and faggots? That’s more complicated, and my friends know I have a bug up my ass about political correctness gone too far. My boss broke up with a Frenchman recently, and told me ‘I hate the French.’ Is that okay? Well, yeah. Frenchman was an ass, his French friends were asses about it, and she’s mad at them. It’s not racist. It’s a specific hate on a specific guy and his posse. But she can’t say it out loud because people will take it wrong.

There’s a fucked up world for you, isn’t it?

My advice? Publicly flog Isiah. Rip him a new one for being such a fuckhead. Make him appologize to T.R. Knight. Fine him. THEN tell him if he disrespects any cast member on this show, ever again, that you’ll kill off his character.

Oh and Shondra? Your spiel about how the characters move the plot is great. As a writer, I get it. But sometimes you have to be the man and make them bow to your will, because of out of character issues. Cope. If you pussy out of this one, I will stop DVRing your show as I watch CSI.